Cut from the same Salvation Army thrift-store cloth of Olympia, Washington’s “freak scene” (They are the closest major town to Aberdeen, WA after all) Milk Music have stinging eyes set on recapturing the spazzed-out zeitgeist of their rebellious Washingtonian forebears. They kick around shuffling rhythms and stretch into tunefulness when it suits them, diving into melody like a decrepit Husker Du. Drawing from a bottomless well of 80s college rock inspiration and bathing in the cathode ray sunshine of Television, they stumble and stumble often between deliberate art rock and a case of full blown improvisation. Riding into dusky stretches of desert on Illegal and Free, fingers take orders from the soul leaving technique to the wolves. Their libertine approach streaks all over No, Nothing, My Shelter, singer Alex Coxen yelping he “often grieves with Hendrix,” as fuzzy bass bounces around trundled guitar, pushing it reluctantly forward. Guitars chime breezily along in album jewels Dogchild and Lacey’s Secret, channelling bittersweet free-form jam of Neil Young & Crazy Horse. They take on heartland rock drowned in the pure grain spirits of tearaway youth as Coxen desperately implores “Let’s steal a car.” Bulks of his drunken poetics are scrawled during a long-walked distance between themselves and the mainstream. Strained of volatility since Beyond Living EP, it’s a piece of timeless ironic Americana from a band determined to prove feeling courses through fingers and throats than anything else. It is music for when you’re out at 4am, on a bender and barely able to quash a lingering yet futile desire to kick on.
BY TOM VALCANIS
Best Track: Dogchild
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: DINOSAUR JR, HUSKER DU, TELEVISION
In A Word: Ramshackle
